Gov. Snyder hopes reopening city jail, more state police will make 'major difference' on Flint crime

Brett Carlsen | MLive.comMichigan Gov. Rick Snyder discusses future plans for the city of Flint on Monday at the North Bank Center.
6/18/12 Flint, Michigan

FLINT, MI -- Gov. Rick Snyder stopped in Flint today and reaffirmed the state's commitment to knocking Flint off the top of the nation's most violent cities list, but said change has to happen at the community level.

Snyder spoke to the media following a closed-door meeting he held with local leaders, including Flint Mayor Dayne Walling, area clergy, the business sector and community activists, at the kick-off of the Flint branch of the governor's Office of Urban and Metropolitan Initiatives.

Snyder bills the Urban Initiatives office as an avenue for the public, private and nonprofit sectors to identify the
largest problems and opportunities in the state's most hard-hit areas.

"Quite often, too often in many cases, people think government's coming in with a solution to solve some problem," Snyder said. "The role of government isn't to solve all problems. It's to help be a convener, a clearing house, a coordinating place to bring the whole community together, because the best solutions are the ones that are broad-based community solutions."

Snyder said public safety was a large part of the discussion, as were ideas on how to attract more jobs to the Flint area.

He highlighted the boosted state police patrols in Flint as
one way the state is contributing to local public safety efforts. Still to come, he said, is more work around mental health courts, local job creation through the "Community Ventures" program and the reopening of the Flint city lockup with funding from the state.

Snyder said bringing the National Guard in to Flint, as some have suggested in recent years, is not the appropriate solution right now.

He also weighed in on a proposal from state Rep. Jim Ananich, who today proposed using some of a nationwide foreclosure settlement to hire more police in Flint. Snyder said the money should first be used to help those who have gone through the foreclosure process, as well as blight elimination programs.

Snyder said he believes his public safety programs will make an impact in Flint.

"We need to be working hard to implement these as quickly as we can and
hopefully seeing some positive results," he said of his public safety initiatives. "I believe the state police has been viewed as a positive thing in terms of
helping with public safety. Same thing with the jail opening up. Each one
of these is an incremental step, but when you add them all up hopefully
they will make a major difference."

Some
of the goals of the Flint Urban Initiatives office include attracting more young people to live and work in
Flint and bringing back neighborhoods, Snyder said.

Harvey Hollins, the statewide director of the office, said Flint's major problem is population loss, and part of today's discussion revolved around bringing businesses in to Flint.

He said they did not get down to specific outcomes because of the size of the group, but future meetings are planned. Hollins is visiting similar offices in Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo in July, he said.

"It's how do you actually begin to put strategies in place to grow the city," Hollins said. "And in growing the city, too, you'll get at some of the crime issues. You'll get at some of the literacy problems... It's a growth strategy. I don't think there's any one magic bullet."

Violence-prevention activist Kenyetta Dotson said the
loss of lives and the loss of jobs in the community are significant
barriers to revitalization, but she feels inspired to convince more community members to
take action after today's meeting.

She said the governor came to Flint "to let us know he has our back."

"Many
of the people, if not all the people, in that room are workers," she
said. "They're already thinking about, 'What can I implement right
now?'"

Walling said Flint has long-standing challenges around employment, education and other issues, but there was some "good dialogue" today about how community members can work together in the future.

"There are some longer-term issues that are going to take longer-term discussions," Walling said. "We do have some common ground."

Hollins said the governor's office is committed to helping Flint.

"The answers are here, as the governor said," he said. "The citizens and residents know how to actually do this stuff and the state can provide a platform and a framework for them to be successful."